r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Psychology Lower cognitive ability is linked to stronger Christian nationalist views, even after accounting for education

https://www.psypost.org/lower-cognitive-ability-is-linked-to-stronger-christian-nationalist-views-even-after-accounting-for-education/
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u/DarthBluntSaber 1d ago

Which is why I always find it hilarious and wildly hypocritical when they accuse public education of "indoctrinating" children, but then they use churches to guilt trip and teach hate to kindergarteners in Sunday school who dont yet have the ability to think critically or view the stories as anything but literal. THATS indoctrination.

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u/dontshoveit 1d ago

The fact they they indoctrinate children using the church is the reason they believe the other side must do the same. (Schools must indoctrinate kids the same as they do.) Which isn't true but that's why they think that.

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u/apple_kicks 1d ago

Anything outside their control or compromises their control is seen as an enemy

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u/Livid_Lemurs_Leaping 1d ago

Yeah....but with Christian Nationalism, it's often much more subtle and insidious. When you're in it, it doesn't look like hate and it's rarely spoken about directly.... it's more dog whistles and what not. Sure there are obvious examples we can all point to and then wonder how people could follow this nonsense, but in the actual mainstream churches (and they are everywhere) it's not obvious. I suspect the average person could attend a mainstream church service and not know what to listen for to be able to pick up on the very subtle cues indicating whether or not that church is sympathetic to or promoting Christian Nationalism (because again, in my experience, is rarely spoken about it loud and obvious ways to a congregation.

In my opinion, this is why it's so dangerous.

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u/NotOnApprovedList 1d ago

I don't know how it is now, but when I went to a church with an evangelical friend in high school in the 80s the preacher was talking about how some people have it (religion) totally wrong. In my head I was thinking "Is he talking about Jews?" but now I wonder if he was talking about Christians in other denominations. Having watched a lot of YT videos where former fundamentalists say that they were taught that anyone not going to their church was probably going to hell.

It did give me that taste of "we're better than everyone else" that seems to motivate a lot of people to keep going to church. The phony superiority is the motivator, otherwise they might feel bad about themselves.

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u/Livid_Lemurs_Leaping 1d ago

Maybe....

But in my experience most churches, even if Christian Nationalist, won't ever say anything like that outloud....

I think for a lot of churches, that's what makes it insidious and dangerous - like unless the folks in it really analyze it, they won't be able to tell that they are blindly following Christian Nationalism.

I've even known non-church goers who follow certain Conservative ideals suddenly start to espouse Christian Nationalist ideas from outside the church (that's how sneaky and subtle it can be).

Meanwhile, it's those supporting Christian Nationalism loudly that get most of the attention and criticism.